CAESAR      IN      ABYSSINIA	IQ
On December 5th the clash occurred at Walwal, within
Ethiopian territory as fixed by treaty between Ethiopia
and Italy; between Italian Somalia, a white officer, aero-
planes and an armoured car on one side, and the Ethiopian
bodyguard of the Anglo-Ethiopian Grazing and Boundary
Commission on the other. Each side says that the other
fired the first shot; certainly the Ethiopian command were
entirely unprepared. Their chief, Fitorari Alemayu, was
shot down leaving his tent in the first five minutes. His
second in command, Shefara, a mild type with no liking
for war, sold off his stock of cartridges to his troops and
hustled off to Jijiga " to bury the dead in consecrated
ground." It devolved on a former interpreter of the
British Consulate in Maji, who had found military service
under the Emperor, to fight on. The Mohammedan Ato
Ali Nur was brave, did as well as he could, at last retired
on Afewerk at Gerlogubi when the armoured car which
his men tried to heave over had killed more than one
hundred of them and broken the swords of the rest.
For the aeroplane, which dropped bombs at a consider-
able distance from the battle, they had a great contempt.
Later it bombed Ado, where the Commission's baggage lay,
and Gerlogubi, an acknowledged Ethiopian post in Ethiopian
territory. The Italians at the time denied that they had
bombed Gerlogubi, but I have seen the bomb-holes and the
splinters there, remote I must admit from the circular camp
which was their target. Afewerk, to strengthen the morale
of his troops, made a knife out of one bomb and ate his
daily meals with it.
Ato Ali Nur was promoted to be Balambaras, which means
captain of the hill-fort.
Signor Mussolini demanded a salute to the Italian flag
and £15,000 indemnity. The Emperor refused, recalling
the terms of the Italo-Ethiopian Treaty of Friendship of
1928 and the Covenant of the League.
I was in the Saar, free-lancing the plebiscite, when the
terms of the Laval-Mussolini agreement were announced
in the Press. There was vague talk of Italy being given a
free hand in Ethiopia. I remembered that only a month
before the Walwal incident, when I was editing the London
Letter of a great provincial paper, an innocent individual